First Principles and Contexts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23426510 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James A W Rembert (Citadel, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1988 |
| Pages | 75-100 |
| Publication date | 1988-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Swift and the Dialectical Tradition (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-1-349-19072-0_6 |
| OpenAlex | W2487692782 |
| ISBN | 9781349190720 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
The premises of a dialectician regarded qua dialectition are generally not as important as the nexus of his arguments and the speed and acumen with which he overthrows the arguments of his opponent. If the dialectician is regarded qua both arguer and author, however, some account must be taken of the principles from which he argues, if for no other reason than that an author is usually a committed person and we need to know what principles in his commitment he defends and what contrary principles he attacks. In literature, if not in logic, substance cannot be separated from style. The simplicity and obviousness of Swift’s principles have dismayed some commentators, who point out the poverty of his commitment, his unphilosophic mind, even his lack of intelligence.1 In this instance, however, what is loss for the philosopher is gain for the dialectician,2 if the criticisers of Swift’s intelligence3 are correct, because a proper dialectician can argue either side of a question with success, his strength lying in wit and style and not necessarily in insight and commitment. That is one view of dialectic. But nowhere is it mandated that the truth must be dull and unconvincing. There is little one can say in reply to a charge that Swift is not a great or profound thinker but only a brilliant stylist with intense feelings; one may hold up the ‘Voyage to the Houyhnhnms’ and the ‘Digression on Madness’ and suggest that they are piercing, philosophic commentaries on human nature, society and the mind, but as yet there is no consensus on that view.
Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Circumstantial evidence · Dialectic · Epistemology · Feeling · Literature · Political science · Simplicity · Sine qua non · Style (visual arts) · Swift · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Highly cited | No |
|---|